Shamil Basayev: was he a career GRU officer? Was Shamil Basayev a career intelligence officer of the GRU

Citizenship

Calls himself a citizen of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

Education

He graduated from high school in 1982.

* High school

Three times he entered the law faculty of the Moscow state university(MSU), but did not pass on the basis of competitive exams.

He entered the Moscow Institute of Land Management Engineers in 1987. In 1988 he was expelled from the second year for poor progress.

The main stages of the biography

passed military service in Air force USSR.

Until 1991 he worked in Moscow.

In early 1991, he joined the troops of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus (KNK).

In August 1991, he took part in the defense of the White House.

In October 1991, a candidate for the presidency of the Republic of Chechnya.

November 9, 1991 participated in the hijacking passenger aircraft Tu-154 from Mineralnye Vody airport to Turkey. In Turkey, the invaders surrendered to the local authorities and, after negotiations, they managed to transfer them to Chechnya.

On June 14, 1995, under the leadership of Shamil Basayev, a hospital with hostages was seized in the city of Budennovsk, Stavropol Territory, in order to force the federal authorities to suspend hostilities in Chechnya and enter into negotiations with the Dudaevites. After telephone conversations with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Basayev's militants left Budyonnovsk and released the hostages on the border of Chechnya.

After the events in Budyonnovsk, the Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case against Shamil Basayev. FSK announced an all-Russian wanted list. But Basayev was never arrested.

In the summer - autumn of 1995, Basayev repeatedly threatened the Russian government with new terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation, if they did not stop fighting and the negotiations have been cancelled.

Shamil Basayev at a meeting of field commanders was elected commander of the combat formations of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

On January 27, 1997, in the presidential elections in the Chechen Republic, he took second place in the rating, losing to Aslan Maskhadov.

In 1998 he headed the Football Federation of Chechnya.

In July 1998 he was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic.

Origin, marital status

Shamil Basayev is called "a Chechen with a Russian tail" behind his back in Chechnya. He really has Russian roots. The family nest of the Basaevs is the village of Dyshne-Vedeno. In 1840, by order of Imam Shamil, it was founded by Russian soldiers who deserted from their units and defected to the side of the Chechens. Among them was the ancestor of the current terrorist N1, who became the founder of the Basayev family. In Dyshne-Vedeno, his distant descendant Shamil was born in 1965. Shamil Basayev belongs to the teip Yalkhoroy, influential in Chechnya. (Magazine "Profile", 2000)

Parents live in Vedeno (Chechen Republic).

In the summer of 1995, information appeared in the media about the death of the Basayev family during the shelling of the city of Vedeno by the Russian military. The information was interpreted as the death of Basayev's parents, wife and children. In fact, only one of Basayev's brothers was killed during the shelling.

* Brothers and sisters

Basayev has three brothers. One died during the shelling of the city of Vedeno in early 1995.

The elder brother - Shirvani (more rare spelling Sharvani or Shervani) Basayev - a militant, was the commandant of the city of Bamut.

* Nationality

* Family status

* Spouse

Basayev's first wife and his children live in Vedeno.

In the spring of 1994 he married a second time. His wife is a native of the Gudauta region of Abkhazia, 20 years old (as of 1996). Basayev confirmed the existence of the family in Abkhazia in an interview " Komsomolskaya Pravda July 15, 1995

On June 10, 1996, the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper expressed the opinion that the first Basayev family had been evacuated to Abkhazia.

The newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" (November 1, 1996) reported that in Abkhazia all fighting girlfriends left behind by Chechen fighters are called "Basayev's wives." According to the newspaper, the newborn children attributed to Basayev by Western journalists are most likely from his militants.

According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta (March 12, 1996), Shamil Basayev has a son and a "newly born daughter" from his second marriage.

Titles and awards

* Honorary and other degrees and titles

The military rank of "colonel" was conferred by the leaders of the Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus. According to other sources, the title was awarded by Dzhokhar Dudayev. (ITAR-TASS, communication dated April 29, 1996).

After the events in Budennovsk, he received the rank of brigadier general from Dzhokhar Dudayev, he usually does not mention this in an interview ("Rural Life", December 5, 1995).

* Rewards

After the operation in Budennovsk, the entire personnel of the armed formation of Shamil Basayev was presented by Dzhokhar Dudayev to the title of "Hero of Chechnya". Three of Basayev's deputies received the Order of Honor of the Nation. And Basayev himself - a reprimand for failure to fulfill the assigned combat mission: Budyonnovsk was not ultimate goal operations ("Nezavisimaya Gazeta", March 12, 1996)

life path

He served in the Air Force as a firefighter.

In 1987 he entered the Moscow Institute of Land Management Engineers.

In 1988, he was expelled from the second year of the institute for poor progress.

Until 1991, he remained in Moscow - he worked "in one of the Chechen cooperatives" in a trading and intermediary limited liability partnership (newspaper "Segodnya", February 1, 1994).

In early 1991, he returned to Chechnya and joined the troops of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus (KNK).

Since 1991, he independently studied the theory of military affairs "according to Russian textbooks." In an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta (March 12, 1996), he spoke about it this way: “I began to study because I had a goal. There were about thirty of us guys, we understood that Russia would not let go of Chechnya just like that, that freedom is an expensive thing and you have to pay for it with blood. Therefore, we prepared hard." In the same interview, he denied the information that he was trained in Abkhazia on the basis of the Russian 345th airborne regiment: "not a single Chechen studied there, because they were not taken."

In August 1991, according to Basayev's own words, he took part in the defense of the "White House": "I knew that if the GKChP won, it would be possible to put an end to the independence of Chechnya ..." (Moskovskaya Pravda, January 27 1996).

In October 1991, during the presidential elections in Chechnya, he acted as a rival of Dzhokhar Dudayev as one of the candidates for the presidency of the republic.

On November 9, 1991, he participated in the hijacking of a Tu-154 passenger plane from Mineralnye Vody airport to Turkey. In Turkey, the invaders surrendered to the local authorities and, after negotiations, they managed to transfer them to Chechnya. In exchange for this, the plane with passengers was released and sent to Russia. In 1995, after the terrorist attack in the city of Budennovsk, the Stavropol Regional Prosecutor's Office resumed the investigation into the criminal case of the hijacking.

After the action in Mineralnye Vody Basayev became commander of a special forces company under Dzhokhar Dudayev (ITAR-TASS, April 29, 1996). According to other sources, the end of 1991 - the beginning of 1992. spent on the road: he fought in Nagorno-Karabakh on the side of Azerbaijan, for some time he was trained at the bases of the Mujahideen in Pakistan.

In 1992, he was appointed commander of the troops of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus.

From August 1992, he took an active part in military operations in Abkhazia. He was the commander of the Gagra Front and Deputy Minister of Defense of Abkhazia. He commanded a detachment of Chechen volunteers, later called the "Abkhazian battalion".

In January 1993, at a joint meeting of the Presidential Council and the Parliament of the Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus, Shamil Basayev was appointed commander of the KNK expeditionary corps in Abkhazia. He was charged with the responsibility of "coordinating, uniting, directing in the right direction and controlling the incoming flow of volunteers."

In 1993, by decree of the chairman of the Armed Forces of Abkhazia, Vladislav Ardzinba, he was approved as deputy minister of defense in the Gudauta administration (Gudauta district of Abkhazia). According to Basayev, his rights extended only to the mountain volunteers, and not to all the armed forces of the Gudauts (Segodnya, February 1, 1994).

In 1993-1994 Shamil Basayev "took control before him of the scattered and petty robbery of trains passing through the territory of Chechnya" (" Soviet Russia", June 22, 1995).

In December 1993, at the 5th Congress of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus, he was again approved as the commander of the KNK troops, and Adyghe Amin Zekhov was appointed chief of staff of the KNK troops.

From April to July 1994, according to his own statement, he was in Afghanistan, in the province of Khost, where, together with one of his groups, he was trained: “The training took place at my expense. I then sold weapons, borrowed from friends and went. Until now, by the way, I owe 3,500 dollars for this trip" ("Nezavisimaya Gazeta", March 12, 1996).

In an interview with the Izvestia newspaper (April 25, 1996), Basayev said that during 1992-1994. traveled three times with his "Abkhaz battalion" to the camps of the Afghan Mujahideen, where he studied the tactics of conducting guerrilla war.

In the summer of 1994, with the start civil war in Chechnya, Basayev joined the fighting on the side of Dzhokhar Dudayev.

On June 14, 1995, under the leadership of Shamil Basayev, a hospital with hostages was seized in the city of Budennovsk, Stavropol Territory, in order to force the federal authorities to suspend hostilities in Chechnya and enter into negotiations with the Dudaevites. During Basayev's action in Budyonnovsk, at least 128 people were killed.

After telephone conversations with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Basayev's militants left Budyonnovsk. In the column of seven buses there were over seventy militants and about 130 volunteer hostages. One of the buses was followed by 16 representatives of the domestic media and 9 deputies of the State Duma. 30 km from Mozdok, the column was blocked by a barrier of armored vehicles, installed by order of Deputy Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov: the leadership of North Ossetia refused to let the militants through its territory. The convoy arrived in Chechnya via Dagestan. In Khasavyurt, the militants were given an enthusiastic welcome by local residents and refugees from Chechnya. In the village of Zandak on the border of Chechnya, Basayev released the hostages.

According to Basayev, he personally selected and trained militants for the operation in Budennovsk: “My trip to Budennovsk cost about twenty-five thousand dollars. True, most of went to buy KamAZ trucks and a Zhiguli car - fifteen thousand dollars. And on the way they handed out eight or nine thousand. When we captured the hospital, all the authorities were at a loss. They say on TV that negotiations are underway, money is being offered, but in reality none of this happened. For two days they were at a loss, they were even afraid to send someone. Only a day later we came to our senses, and for the first time a Chechen from the city came to us. At first I was surprised when Chernomyrdin called me. But already by the fact that he asked me not to succumb to provocations, not to respond to them with fire, I realized that he could not control the situation. Prime Minister, and he did not have much power. Dudayev did not know about the operation. At that moment I did not have contact with him for the second month. Yes, even if it was, then I would not dedicate it to such subtleties. This is my rule" ("Nezavisimaya Gazeta", March 12, 1996).

After the operation in Budennovsk, the entire personnel of the armed formation of Shamil Basayev was presented by Dzhokhar Dudayev to the title of "Hero of Chechnya". Three of Basayev's deputies received the Order of Honor of the Nation. And Basayev himself was reprimanded for failure to fulfill the assigned combat mission: Budyonnovsk was not the ultimate goal of the operation (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 12, 1996).

According to the newspaper "Segodnya" (July 1, 1995), shortly before the tragedy in Budennovsk, a certain company rented a plane of a private airline to operate a Minvody-Moscow flight with a stopover at the capital's Bykovo airport. There, the plane was waiting for the buses ordered in advance by another private company. There is no information that the plane and buses were ordered specifically for Basayev's group, however, after the action in Budyonnovsk, the chartered flight did not take off from the Minvod.

After Budennovsk, Shamil Basayev was in one of the mountain villages of the republic, although there were reports in the media that he was hiding in Abkhazia and Pakistan. In the autumn of 1995, interviews with him periodically appeared in the Russian and foreign press.

After the events in Budyonnovsk, the Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case against Shamil Basayev. FSK announced an all-Russian wanted list. However, Basayev was never arrested. Five employees of the Neftekumsk traffic police were arrested, accused of taking bribes from Basayev. The accusation of a bribe was based on the words of Basayev, but he (for obvious reasons) did not appear to testify. The accusation of a bribe fell away, and they decided to try the policemen for negligence: "They let Shamil Basayev's gang with a large amount of weapons through and did not inspect it."

In the summer-autumn of 1995, Basayev repeatedly threatened the Russian government with new terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation if hostilities were not stopped and negotiations were curtailed. He also said that he has 7 containers of bacteriological weapons, 5 shells with binary ammunition, radioactive substances and did not rule out the possibility of their use. The Russian military reacted ironically to his threats, but on November 23, 1995, an NTV film crew, in accordance with information received from Shamil Basayev, found a package in Izmailovsky Park yellow color with high levels of radiation. The level of radiation at the site of the find was five roentgens per hour, with an allowable rate of 15-20 microrengen per hour.

On November 24, Russian Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov said that the package with radioactive materials found was "an ordinary laboratory container used in calibration workshops." According to the analysis carried out by the chemical laboratory of the Research Institute of the Federal Security Service, it contained cesium-137, which was previously widely used in marking special devices.

In early October 1995, Basayev's detachment of 300 people camped in the woods near the village of Chapaevo, Novolaksky district of Dagestan. The head of the district administration asked the militants to leave the territory of the district. To this, Basayev said that this was Chechen land (before the deportation in 1944, Chechens lived on the territory of the present Novolaksky district) and he would stay there as long as he wanted.

In October 1995, Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the shelling of the Russian armored group of the 506th motorized rifle brigade, which killed 18 people. But the next day Aslan Maskhadov denied this report. Shirvani Basayev also stated that he was not involved in this attack, saying that at the time of the attack he was at the location of the 506th motorized rifle brigade and, on the contrary, suggested that its commander organize a joint rebuff to the attackers.

In the autumn of 1995-winter 1996, Basayev left the Caucasus twice: he went to Siberia for 10 days and to Moscow for a week. In one of the interviews, he later said: “What problems can there be? Not all Chechens know me by sight, so what can we say about Russia! No, I didn’t shave off my beard in principle. a good thing. Hat, glasses. Money - of course. There were five people with me. No, I not only drove a car, but also walked the streets. They never asked for documents. I used to live in Moscow for five years and paid all these years - to traffic cops and everyone else. I know Russia. So there are no problems. If you have normal money, then even from the scene of a crime, if they capture you, any policeman will let you go." (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 12, 1996).

In mid-January 1996, an unconfirmed report was published in the media about the assault by Shamil Basayev's detachment of the Vladikavkaz airport.

January 16, 1996 from the Turkish Black Sea port of Trabzon was captured by the ship "Avrasiya". The capture was carried out by the pro-Chechen group of Mohammed Tokchan. Basayev confirmed that three of the group that hijacked the ship were his old friends: “Fought together in Abkhazia. Not so long ago they were visiting me. to the end" ("Komsomolskaya Pravda in Moscow", January 31, 1996).

On March 7, 1996, the militants captured most of the city of Grozny for a day. According to unspecified data, they were led by Shamil Basayev. The RIA-Novosti agency published rumors that on March 4, Basayev's militants broke through the encirclement near the village of Bamut and headed for the area of the Khankala military airport on the outskirts of Grozny "allegedly in order to capture Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, who had arrived there."

At the end of April 1996, after the death of Dzhokhar Dudayev, Shamil Basayev, at a meeting of field commanders, was elected commander of the combat formations of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, instead of Aslan Maskhadov. Prior to that, Shamil served as commander of the reconnaissance and sabotage battalion (RDB) of the Armed Forces of Chechnya-Ichkeria.

In the spring and summer of 1996, Shamil Basayev did not participate in Russian-Chechen negotiations. Russian President Boris Yeltsin spoke out against his presence (radio station Ekho Moskvy, May 31, 1996). Shamil Basayev repeatedly refused to stop hostilities against the federal forces.

In June 1996, Basayev's militants arrived in Abkhazia for rest and treatment. The prosecutor's office of the autonomous republic, which left the conflict zone in September 1993 and has been operating in Tbilisi ever since, issued a warrant for the arrest of Shamil Basayev. A criminal case against Basayev was initiated in 1994. According to the General Prosecutor's Office of Georgia, after the fall of the city of Gagra on November 2, 1992, Shamil Basayev and his associates committed a number of grave crimes in the areas they occupied.

In November 1996, Shamil Basayev refused the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya offered to him in the coalition government of the republic. He wished to remain in the position of commander of the central front, at the same time heading the customs committee.

In November 1996, Shamil Basayev announced his intention to put forward his candidacy for the presidency of Chechnya in the January 1997 elections.

In December 1996, in accordance with the election law, he left the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in order to have the right to run for the presidency of Chechnya.

On January 27, 1997, in the presidential elections in the Chechen Republic, he took second place in the rating, gaining 23.5 percent of the vote and losing the election to Aslan Maskhadov.

Wounded 9 times, shell-shocked 7 times (data as of August 1996).

In September 1999, gangs led by Shamil Basayev and Chechen field commanders supporting him invaded the territory of Dagestan.

In February 2000, he was seriously wounded when he hit a mine while trying to leave Grozny.

In May 2000, information appeared that Basayev had died.

It turned out that Basayev was alive, but in serious condition - his leg was amputated.

In this regard, there were reports in the media that Basayev wants to negotiate with the federals, because. he is sure that he can still be treated abroad, but the “commander” can no longer get out of Chechnya.

In October 2000, he announced his readiness to send 150 of his "fighters" to the Middle East (according to him, another 1,500 Chechen fighters are ready to join the "holy war for the liberation of Jerusalem").

In December 2000, Shamil Basayev's brother, Shirvani, was killed in the past, the commandant of Bamut, and in Maskhadov's government, the head of the Chechen State Committee for Fuel and Energy.

In March 2001, in connection with the kidnapping of the American Kenneth Gluck, Basayev said that it was the "amateur activity" of some Mujahideen, and asked Gluck "not to give anyone any information that could harm your unwitting kidnappers."

According to regional headquarters to conduct the Chechen operation, Basayev is currently (May 2001) based in the village of Duisi, Akhmeta district of the Republic of Georgia.

The Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia put him on the federal wanted list, wanted by Interpol.

Hobbies, hobbies, tastes, style, image

Dreams of eventually becoming a beekeeper.

When I was young, I wanted to be an investigator.

Three times he entered the law faculty of Moscow State University - he did not pass through the competition.

Third party ratings, characteristics

Basayev in July 1998 was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic. Basayev's appointment to the post, which, given the situation in Chechnya, is quite comparable in importance to the prime minister's, can hardly be considered an accident. The events in Gudermes, Maskhadov's declaration of war on Wahhabism, the dissolution of certain military formations, as well as the ban on the activities of radical movements and the media promised by the President, once again confirmed that Chechnya is split into two opposing camps. In this situation, Maskhadov is in dire need of the support of former comrades-in-arms, especially those like Basayev. The Congress of the Peoples of Chechnya and Dagestan, headed by Basayev, has at its disposal a so-called "peacekeeping battalion" under the command of Khattab, which has more than two hundred well-trained fighters. By the way, Basayev refuted the assumptions about any disagreements between him and the president. If they were, then Basayev, in his words, "under no circumstances would go to the service of Maskhadov." .(Kommersant, 1998)

In 1998, the Chechen Football Federation was headed by Shamil Basayev. He even played for Terek himself and, as they say, not bad. But the wounded leg did not allow Shamil Basayev to be on the field for more than half an hour. On his behalf, children's tournaments were also held in Chechnya. Khattab also came to the children, always with rich gifts - hours, sportswear, computers. "Basayev never refused to help footballers, no matter what they asked for," says Lom-Ali Ibragimov, president of the Chechen Football Federation. ("Kommersant", 2000)

Rural Life (December 5, 1995): “Like Figaro, Basaev is here, Basaev is there, he distributes interviews like cigarettes. doubts arise. Or maybe the detectives were not told the task clearly. As Kozma Prutkov says: "Hurry up slowly." Meanwhile, Basayev is threatening new terrorist attacks, brandishing containers with nuclear filling. So, maybe his wanted list has been announced, to put it mildly, conditionally, before turning himself in?<...>The benevolent, sometimes apologetic tone of the questions asked in the interview is directly touching. About the health of the "hero" of Chechnya, about youth and unfulfilled dreams. The thirty-year-old militant, apparently, is captivated by this sheep's bleating, a comradely appeal to "you."

Izvestia (April 25, 1996): "Shamil Basayev is one of the brightest and at the same time odious figures among the leaders of the Chechen resistance movement."

Viktor Ilyukhin: "Basayev is quite capable of subduing militant groups, putting them under his tight control and leading the resistance, which threatens to turn the conflict into a "sluggish civil, guerrilla war" ("PostFactum", April 30, 1996).

Minister of Information of Ichkeria Movladi Udugov: "Shamil Basayev has never been at the top. He is not a fool. But he has always been the secret spring of all our affairs" (" Russian newspaper", May 23, 1996).

Permanent contacts, relationships, connections

media

The Ukrainian nationalist newspaper "Cherkaska zona", an organ of the Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA), put Basayev's name on the list of members of the editorial board.

Journalist Yelena Masyuk (NTV television company) repeatedly interviewed Shamil Basayev and his associates. The Prosecutor General's Office initiated a criminal case against her on the fact of non-information.

Personal

Konstantin Borovoy, in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta (April 20, 1996), said that in 1985, as an assistant professor at the Moscow Institute of Land Management Engineers, he lectured on applied mathematics and "sometimes gave bad marks in exams" to Shamil Basayev.

Political views, position

According to Shamil Basayev in 1992, "Russia was interested in the escalation of the Abkhaz-Georgian conflict into a war in order to bring both sides to their knees" ("Today", February 1, 1994).

To the question of the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" (January 31, 1996) why he did not participate in the attacks of militants on Kizlyar and Pervomaisky, Shamil Basayev replied: "I still have brains in place. Do we have little to do in Chechnya? Or Russia small? Clearly, there is no such sovereign state, like Dagestan, or, even more so, the Accident. But there are our neighbors, fellow believers. Raduev conceived the operation, but did not think it through.

When asked about his successes in battles with Russian generals, who have two or three higher special education, Basayev answered this way: “They went through a certain school, and this, in my opinion, is their trouble. It lies in the fact that they were taught from the school to conduct full-scale wars, when their units have everything in abundance. If tanks and planes do not help , then, according to textbooks, they can atomic bomb send. They were brought up on this." ("Nezavisimaya Gazeta", March 12, 1996).

He supported Dzhokhar Dudayev: "He is our president, and the people elected him. By the way, I did not vote for him. At that moment I did not vote for anyone at all. But I support Dudayev" ("Nezavisimaya Gazeta", March 12, 1996. ). However, in another interview, Basayev claimed that he did not obey Dudayev: "Who is Dudayev?! I obey only Allah alone!" ("Izvestia", April 25, 1996).

believes that the output Russian troops from Chechnya to end the war is not enough: "Russia must pay us compensation for the damage." He advocates the secession of all the North Caucasian republics from Russia, and the creation of a single mountain state (Izvestia, April 25, 1996).

Sensation with reservations

The statement of the chief of the Russian General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin about the death of the most dangerous Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev is not confirmed by "material evidence", but the military can be trusted, counting all the wounds on the militant's body, which were previously reported in the press.

The Ministry of Defense claims that since the beginning of March, Basayev has not been in touch. At the same time, the military is convinced that the field commander did not leave the territory of Chechnya. According to RTR, the military has other reasons to believe that the terrorist was at least seriously wounded in early March.

Even less information on this subject was distributed by the FSB. Sergei Babkin, head of the special service's department for Chechnya, said that he had no data "on the basis of which one could draw a conclusion about the liquidation of field commander Shamil Basayev."

However, according to Kvashnin, the information about the death of the field commander is just as reliable as the information about the death of Emir Khattab, whose body has also not yet been found.

Kvashnin's statement was refuted only by the Kavkaz-Center agency, a propaganda resource for Chechen fighters. The correspondent of this agency stated that on April 25 he personally met with Basayev on April 25 and found him in perfect health.

Representatives of the federal forces and counterintelligence often informed the Russians about Basayev's health. From these reports it followed that his condition was deteriorating, but subsequently the field commander again declared his active participation in hostilities.

From students to terrorists

Basayev was born in 1965 in the Chechen village of Vedeno. In 1987 he entered the Moscow Institute of Land Management, and in 1991 he participated in the defense of the White House. In the same year, Basayev returned to Chechnya and joined the work of the so-called Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus. In 1992, this organization sent Basayev to Georgia, where he fought on the side of the Abkhazians. Even then, Basayev's organizational skills were highly appreciated in Grozny, and he returned from Abkhazia to the post of "commander-in-chief of the confederation troops."

Basayev gained wide popularity during the first Chechen war. From 1994 to 1996, his gang carried out hundreds of major sabotage and terrorist attacks. One of the most dramatic moments of this period was the events of July 1995, when Basayev's detachment raided Budyonnovsk. In this city, the militants seized the hospital, where there were several hundred patients. As a result of an armed raid, 147 people were killed, more than 400 citizens were injured. In total, about 100 militants participated in the raid.

The head of the Russian government, Viktor Chernomyrdin, took part in the negotiations with the militants. After negotiations, hiding behind the hostages, Basayev's detachment left the encirclement and returned to Chechnya. In April 1996, separatist leaders appointed Basayev as commander of the armed forces of Ichkeria.

Basayev is also involved in the invasion of Chechen fighters into Dagestan, which took place in 1999. On the territory of the neighboring republic, the extremists intended to proclaim an Islamic state independent of Russia.

During the second Chechen campaign, Basayev had absolute authority among the militants and was considered one of the key figures in the headquarters of the separatists.

How Basayev was killed

The search for Basayev gave its first fruits in October 2000. Then the FSB officers confiscated a powerful television station in the village of Mesker-Yurt in the Shali district. The militants planned to transfer this station, including two satellite dish antennas, to Basayev. The equipment was stored in the house of the head of the press service of the so-called "Army of General Dudayev" Hamid Sinbariev.

In December 2000, Basayev's brother Shirvani died. He was wounded in a shootout at a market in the Zavodskoy district of Grozny. Subsequently, Shirvani died in the Nozhai-Yurt region and was buried in Vedeno.

In February 2000, the military got a real chance to destroy Shamil Basayev. Then his detachment was surrounded in Grozny. As reported by "Interfax" with reference to the Chechen information center "Kavkaz", while leaving the city, Basayev stepped on a booby trap, the so-called "petal". The explosion blew off three toes of his left foot. Then the same leg was hit by a fragment of an exploding artillery shell.

At the same time, the head of the press center of the UGA in the North Caucasus, Alexander Veklich, said that Basayev's leg had been torn off. According to the military, the operation in field conditions made to him by the former Minister of Health of Chechnya Khambiev. According to NTV, Basayev's eye was gouged out and his arm hurt.

In July 2000, Basayev appeared in front of television cameras. A video interview with the field commander was distributed by the Associated Press. Basayev was shown in the frame not in full height, but subsequently photographs appeared that confirmed the accuracy of the information about the amputation of the leg.

In this interview, Basayev admitted that he hides in the forests almost all the time. "We left the cities so that federal troops would not bomb civilians," the field commander said.

The first message about Basayev's death was distributed in June 2000 by the Military News Agency. It suggested that Basayev may have been killed in the Vedeno area when his cavalry unit, Basayev, was hit by helicopter gunships.

However, later representatives of the apparatus of Russian presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky denied this information. The staff of the apparatus stated that on that day there was non-flying weather over Vedeno, therefore "aircraft did not fly and could not destroy any cavalry groups, among which Basayev was allegedly."

In July 2000, an army intelligence officer told ITAR-TASS about sharp deterioration field commander status. The officer said that Emir Khattab, on pain of death, forbade all field commanders and militants to report anything about Basayev's health.

In August 2001, Izvestia.Ru spread information that the military had been promised a Hero of Russia star and a decent cash prize for Basayev's head.

At the same time, General Aleksey Kuznetsov, deputy commander of the United Forces in the North Caucasus, announced that Basayev had been wounded again. He told Interfax that the militant leader was almost caught in the Vedeno district. According to him, during the operation military intelligence six people from Basayev's bodyguard were killed, and he himself was wounded.

Many media then expressed doubts about the reliability of this statement, since, by that time, Basayev did not have one leg, and in this case he could hardly have escaped from the intelligence officers.

In the past year, the military has repeatedly stated that the condition of the field commander is constantly deteriorating due to progressive gangrene. The Western press reported that Basayev was wounded in the arm and later received three bullets in the stomach during a shootout with Chechen Defense Minister Magomed Yambiev, but this information was not unambiguously confirmed.

In February 2002, Lieutenant-General Vladimir Moltenskoy, commander of the Joint Group of Forces in the North Caucasus, suggested that Basayev "is being treated outside of Chechnya."

The last message in which Basayev appears as active actor, dates back to February 15 - then his video message with threats against those who support the new government in the republic appeared in Chechnya.

Chekists did not disappoint

In early February 2002, Russian President Vladimir Putin hastened the counterintelligence officers to capture Basayev and Khattab. "We need to turn the tide when bringing to justice the leaders of groups and perpetrators of terrorist attacks is unjustifiably delayed, otherwise your operational efforts will not have a logical conclusion," the head of state said at an expanded meeting of the FSB board.

It seems that Putin's Chekists did not disappoint. On April 26, the program "Vesti" of the RTR TV channel showed the corpse of one of the most famous leaders of the Chechen fighters - Emir Khattab. According to the FSB, the terrorist was killed in March 2002. According to the Ministry of Defense, the named brother of Khattab, Shamil Basayev, could have died on March 7-10 from wounds received as a result of air strikes on militant camps in one of mountainous areas Chechnya.

There are many rumors about Shamil Basayev regarding his life and work. Some of them confuse the origin of the field commander. According to one version, the fighter for the independence of Chechnya had Russian roots.

who "resurrected"

Shamil Basayev is perhaps the most famous leader Chechen fighters who participated in the war with the federal forces for the independence of the unrecognized Republic of Ichkeria. He became the only one of the Chechen field commanders who was awarded the title of Generalissimo (posthumously). As the organizer of resonant terrorist attacks on the territory of Russia, he was included in the lists of the most dangerous terrorists not only Russian government but also the UN, the US State Department and the European Union.

Despite the pathological hatred of everything Russian, which Basayev raised to the rank life credo, many who knew the field commander personally call his ancestors the descendants of ethnic Russians who were accepted into “Chechenism”, or more precisely, into the Belgatoy teip - one of the largest Chechen teips, which is part of the Nokhchmakhkahoy tukhum.

It is curious that the legend about the origin of Belgatoy tells that the representatives of this teip died out in a not so distant time due to an outbreak of an epidemic, but then restored their numbers, largely due to newcomers. The legend is also confirmed by the etymology of the name: "bel" - "to die", "gatto" - "to resurrect".

Basayev's life seems to confirm the fate of his native teip: several times he was counted among the dead, and he miraculously "resurrected". However, according to other sources, Basayev's ancestors joined the Benoy teip.

With a "Russian tail"

Shamil Basayev was born on January 14, 1965 in the village of Dyshne-Vedeno on the banks of the Khulhulau River. It is noteworthy that Basayev was born in a place that does not indicate clan affiliation, like Benoy-Vedeno, but in a village named "nokhchiin orsash" - "Chechen Russians."

According to the writer Yuri Gavryuchenkov, this farm was once a settlement of Russian defectors, who in the 40s 19th century built defensive fortifications for the leader of the highlanders of the period of the Caucasian wars, Imam Shamil, as well as a residential building, in which he later settled. There is a hypothesis that one of Shamil Basayev's ancestors was a naib - an assistant and authorized representative of Imam Shamil.

The RIA Novosti agency, in an article dated October 13, 2005, citing its sources, writes that on the territory of Chechnya, the field commander Basayev had the nickname "Chechen with a Russian tail", which hinted at his roots. According to these data, the founder of the Basayev clan was a Russian soldier who deserted from active army and went over to the side of the rebel highlanders.

Common surname

However, even if we assume that there were Russians in the Basayev family, then by the time of his birth there was not much Russian blood left. The surname Basaev is quite common not only among Chechens, but also, for example, among the Ingush and Ossetians. This gives some reasons to rank the field commander among other Caucasian peoples.

There is an opinion that Shamil Basayev was born from the marriage of a Chechen and an Avar, which gives rise to all sorts of speculation, including about the "purity of blood." For Caucasians, “purity of blood” is an important component of the pedigree, it largely depends on it, what fate will be prepared for the one who enters the life path mountaineer.

Magomed Khambiev, a former divisional general and defense minister of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, on the contrary, said that Basayev's father was an Avar. Considering that among all the peoples of the Caucasus, nationality is determined by the father, Basayev's nationality is obvious. However, Shamil Basayev himself put everything in its place in one of his interviews. The field commander stated that his father, Salman Basayev, and mother, Nura Basaeva, are Chechens by nationality.

Why is the Cossack here?

Despite Basayev's statement, many versions of his origin surfaced in the future. They can also include the most exotic, calling the mother of the future terrorist a native Cossack village. However, it is possible that this version was confused with a persistent rumor that spread in 2005, according to which a Kuban Cossack became Basayev's third wife.

The marriage was allegedly concluded in one of the remote villages of the Kuban, where Basayev was recovering his health, and the celebrations themselves took place on St. Valentine's Day on February 14, 2005. The press even gave details: the bride, they say, is a hereditary Kuban Cossack, the sister of one "Russian Mujahideen." The list of guests present at the wedding was full of eminent and influential Muslim residents of Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Rostov Region, Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories.

Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent Alexander Kots tried to clarify this issue by contacting representatives of three Cossack organizations in Krasnodar. “This cannot be, this is a vile provocation, setting the task of disrupting holiday season", - assured the capital journalist.

A member of the Cossack Association, Mikhail Zarubin, according to Alexander Kots, convinced him that under no circumstances could a hereditary Cossack woman marry a Chechen terrorist. Such women are very rare today, they will not be able to marry not only a Muslim, but even a Russian groom from another region.

Basaev Shamil Salmanovich

Field commander during the First Chechen War and leader of the assault on Grozny (August 1996), organizer of terrorist attacks and hostage-taking in Budennovsk, Stavropol Territory (1995), the theater center on Dubrovka in Moscow (2002), a school in Beslan (2004, North Ossetia), leader of the militant invasion of Dagestan (1999), which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War, and the attack on Nalchik (October 2005, Kabardino-Balkaria).

Biography

Born on January 14, 1965 in the village of Dyshne-Vedeno, Vedeno district, Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Father and mother are Chechens. Belongs to the Belgata teip, influential in Chechnya. (There is information that one of Shamil Basayev's ancestors was a naib (assistant, authorized) of Imam Shamil). He lived at the place of birth until 1970, then - in the village of Yermolovskaya CHIASSR.

In 1982, Sh. Basayev graduated high school. Since 1983 he has worked as a laborer. Three times unsuccessfully entered the law faculty of Moscow State University (MSU). Passed a valid military service in the USSR Air Force. Since 1986 he lived in Moscow, where in 1987 he entered the Moscow Institute of Land Management Engineers (classes in computer technology Shamil Basayev was taught by teacher Konstantin Borovoy), but in 1988 he was expelled from the 2nd year for poor progress. He went in for sports, had the 1st category in football. Until 1991, he worked in Moscow, in a trading and intermediary LLP (one of the so-called "Chechen cooperatives"). Having owed a large amount of money, he returned to Chechnya.

Activities in Chechnya and beyond

In early 1991, he returned to Chechnya and joined the troops of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus (KNK). Since 1991, he independently studied the theory of military affairs "according to Russian textbooks." In an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta (March 12, 1996), he spoke about it this way: “I began to study because I had a goal. There were about thirty of us guys, we understood that Russia would not let go of Chechnya just like that, that freedom is an expensive thing and you have to pay for it with blood. Therefore, we prepared hard."

Shamil Basayev's group called "Vedeno" was founded in June-July 1991 to protect the buildings where the congresses of the KNK and the National Congress of the Chechen People (OKChN) were held. The group included residents of the villages of Benoy, Vedeno, Dyshne-Vedeno, Bamut and other mountain villages.

Basayev was an active participant in the events of the "Chechen revolution" of August-November 1991 (in particular, on October 5, 1991, he took part in the seizure of the building of the KGB of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR as part of Ruslan Shamaev's special unit).

In October 1991, during the presidential elections in Chechnya, Shamil Basayev came out as a rival to Dzhokhar Dudayev as one of the candidates for the presidency of the republic.

On November 9, 1991, in protest against the introduction of a state of emergency in Checheno-Ingushetia, together with Said-Ali Satuev and Lom-Ali Chachaev (the latter, according to some reports, took part in a terrorist attack in the city of Budennovsk), Basaev hijacked a Tu-154 passenger plane from the Mineralnye Vody airport to Turkey, for which he received recognition from the management of OKChN. Basayev forced the pilots to fly to Turkey, where the terrorists surrendered to the local authorities and, after negotiations, managed to be transported to Chechnya in exchange for the release of the hostages.

After the action in Mineralnye Vody, Basayev became the commander of a special forces company with Dzhokhar Dudayev. According to other sources, the end of 1991 - the beginning of 1992. Basayev spent on the road: he fought in Nagorno-Karabakh on the side of Azerbaijan, for some time he was trained at the bases of the Mujahideen and Pakistan.

In 1992, Shamil Basayev was appointed commander of the troops of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus.

From August 1992 he took an active part in military operations in Abkhazia. He was the commander of the Gagra Front and Deputy Minister of Defense of Abkhazia. He commanded a detachment of Chechen volunteers.

In December 1993, at the 5th Congress of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus, Shamil Basayev was again approved as the commander of the KNK troops, and Adyghe Amin Zekhov was appointed chief of staff of the KNK troops.

From April to July 1994, according to his own statement, Basayev was in Afghanistan, in the province of Khost, where he was trained together with one of his groups. In an interview with the Izvestia newspaper in 1996, Basayev said that during 1992-1994. traveled three times with his "Abkhazian battalion" to the camps of the Afghan Mujahideen, where he learned the tactics of guerrilla warfare.

First Chechen War

In the summer of 1994, Basayev entered into hostilities against the opposition on the side of Dudayev. In July 1994, in Grozny, the "Abkhaz battalion" fought with Ruslan Labazanov's group. Basayev's formation also played a role during the unsuccessful attempt to storm Grozny by the opposition. Shamil Basayev was considered one of the closest associates of the Chechen president. The personnel of the "Abkhazian battalion" guarded Dudayev.

By the beginning of hostilities with the federal troops in December 1994, Basayev was under the command of about two thousand people. After the defeat in Vedeno, 200-300 people remained in the battalion.

On June 3, 1995, the house of Basayev's uncle Khasmagomed Basayev was destroyed by a missile and bomb attack, as a result of which 12 Basayev's relatives were killed, including Native sister- Zinaida, born in 1964 and seven children.

Hostage-taking in Budyonnovsk

On June 14, 1995, Shamil Basayev, at the head of a detachment of up to 200 people, seized a hospital with hostages in the city of Budennovsk, Stavropol Territory, in order to force the federal authorities to suspend hostilities in Chechnya and enter into negotiations with Dudayev's people. According to many sources, the terrorist act in Budyonnovsk was an act of revenge for the death of persons close to him. During Basayev's action in Budyonnovsk, at least 128 people were killed.

After telephone conversations with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Chechen fighters led by Basayev left Budennovsk. The convoy of seven buses contained over seventy militants and about 130 volunteer hostages. One of the buses was followed by 16 representatives of the domestic media and 9 deputies of the State Duma. 30 km from the city of Mozdok, the column was blocked by a barrier of armored vehicles, installed by order of Deputy Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov: the leadership of North Ossetia refused to let the militants through its territory, so the column arrived in Chechnya through Dagestan. In Khasavyurt locals and refugees from Chechnya organized a solemn meeting for the militants. In the village of Zandak on the border of Chechnya, Basayev released the hostages.

According to Basayev, he personally selected and trained militants for the operation in Budennovsk: “My trip to Budyonnovsk cost about twenty-five thousand dollars. However, most of it was spent on the purchase of KamAZ trucks and a Zhiguli car - fifteen thousand dollars. And on the way they handed out eight or nine thousand. When we seized the hospital, all the authorities were at a loss. On TV they say that negotiations are underway, money is being offered, but in reality there was nothing. They were at a loss for two days, they were even afraid send someone. Only a day later we came to our senses, and for the first time a Chechen from the city came to us. At first, I was surprised when Chernomyrdin called me. But already because he asked me not to succumb to provocations, not to respond to them with fire ", I realized that he could not control the situation. Prime Minister, and he did not have very much power. Dudayev did not know about the operation. At that moment I had no contact with him for the second month. Yes, even if I had, then I would not dedicate it to such t oncosity. This is my rule."

Operations in Chechnya

Basayev's gang enjoyed the greatest prestige among illegal armed formations, and he himself became more and more a "rallying factor of personality." Basayev became national hero Chechnya, his authority in the eyes of the Chechens has grown significantly. The detachment of militants he led had significant materiel, including infantry fighting vehicles, Grad installations, Strela and Stinger MANPADS.

In the summer-autumn of 1995, Basayev repeatedly threatened the Russian government with new terrorist acts (including the use of radioactive substances) on the territory of the Russian Federation if hostilities were not stopped and negotiations were curtailed.

In early October 1995, Basayev's detachment of 300 people camped in the woods near the village of Chapaevo in the Novolaksky district of Dagestan. The head of the district administration asked the militants to leave the territory of the district. To this, Basayev said that this was Chechen land (before the deportation in 1944, Chechens lived on the territory of the present Novolaksky district) and he would stay there as long as he wanted.

In October 1995, Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the shelling of the Russian armored group of the 506th motorized rifle brigade, which killed 18 people. The next day Aslan Maskhadov denied this report. Shirvani Basayev also stated that he was not involved in this attack, saying that at the time of the attack he was at the location of the 506th motorized rifle brigade and, on the contrary, suggested that its commander organize a joint rebuff to the attackers.

On July 19, 1995, in an interview, Basayev said that if the population of the republic votes in favor of joining Russia during a referendum, he "will not accept and will continue to fight."

In December 1995, Shamil Basayev was one of the leaders of the assault on Grozny.

In the spring and summer of 1996, Shamil Basayev did not participate in Russian-Chechen negotiations. Russian President Boris Yeltsin spoke out against his presence. Shamil Basayev repeatedly refused to stop hostilities against the federal forces.

In November 1996, Shamil Basayev refused the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya offered to him in the coalition government of the republic formed by Zelimkhan Yandarbiev. He wished to remain in the position of commander of the central front, while at the same time heading (since September 1996) the customs committee of Ichkeria. At the same time, Shamil Basayev announced his intention to put forward his candidacy for the presidency of Chechnya in the January 1997 elections.

In December 1996, in accordance with the election law, Basayev resigned as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in order to be eligible to run for President of Chechnya.

Interwar period

Participation in the presidential elections in Chechnya

On January 27, 1997, in the presidential elections in the Chechen Republic, Shamil Basayev took second place, gaining 23.7% of the vote (other candidates: Aslan Maskhadov - 59.7%, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev - 10.2%). In the elections, Shamil Basayev ran in tandem with Vakha Ibragimov (Yandarbiev's adviser on foreign policy issues).

On the 20th of February 1997, at the founding congress of the Party of Freedom of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (PS CRI), Shamil Basayev was elected its honorary chairman. In its first special statement, the Freedom Party of the Chechen Republic condemned Ruslan Kutaev (Party of National Independence) for inviting Victor Chernomyrdin, Akhsarbek Galazov (North Ossetia), Valery Kokov (Kabardino-Balkaria) to the celebration on the occasion of the inauguration of Aslan Maskhadov, who are accused of being involved in "unleashing war against the Chechen people".

Shamil Basayev believed that the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya was not enough to end the war: "Russia must pay us compensation for the damage." He advocated the secession of all the North Caucasian republics from Russia and the creation of a single mountain state.

In the summer of 1997, the Congress of the Peoples of Chechnya and Dagestan was held in Grozny. Congress co-chairs Movladi Udugov and Magomed Tagaev declared the territory of the two republics a caliphate, and Shamil Basayev his imam. The then mufti of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, came out with a sharp condemnation of the ideas of Wahhabism. Shortly thereafter, the Dagestani Wahhabis declared their sovereignty over the territories of the villages of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi.

In July 1998, Basayev was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic. In the same year, he headed the Chechen Football Federation. According to the current leaders of the Chechen Football Federation, at that time Shamil Basayev did a lot for the development of football and other sports in the Chechen Republic.

Invasion of Dagestan and the beginning of the Second Chechen War

On August 7-22, 1999, Shamil Basayev, together with the Jordanian Amir Khattab, led the invasion of armed groups of militants into Dagestan, after which a new large-scale military campaign began on the territory of the Chechen Republic.

Second Chechen War reconciled Basayev and Maskhadov, who verbally condemned the invasion of Dagestan, but did nothing to prevent it. However, there was still no special mutual understanding between them. Maskhadov continued to be the formal leader of the rebellious Ichkeria, while Shamil Basayev took over the real leadership of military operations and the organization of terrorist acts both on the territory of Chechnya and abroad.

In February 2000, Basayev was seriously wounded when he hit a mine while trying to leave Grozny. Basayev survived, but his leg was amputated. In May 2000, information appeared that Basayev died from complications after being wounded, which was not confirmed.

In October 2000, Shamil Basayev announced his readiness to send 150 of his fighters to the Middle East (according to him, another 1,500 Chechen fighters are ready to join the "holy war for the liberation of Jerusalem").

In December 2000, Shamil Basayev's brother, Shirvani, was killed, formerly the commandant of Bamut, and in Maskhadov's government, the head of the Chechen State Committee for Fuel and Energy.

Hostage-taking and terrorist attacks

On January 9, 2001, Kenneth Gluck, a representative of the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian mission, was kidnapped in Chechnya. On February 3, he was released, and on March 14, 2001, Basayev claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

At the end of October 2002, Shamil Basayev, being the head of the military committee of the Republic of Ichkeria, took responsibility for the terrorist attack in the Moscow Theater Center on Dubrovka, and also announced that he was resigning all powers, except for those related to the leadership of the "reconnaissance and sabotage battalion of martyrs "Riyad-us-Salikhin" ("Gardens of the Righteous"). According to his statement, it was this group that organized the terrorist attack in Moscow. At the same time, there were reports that Aslan Maskhadov announced the initiation of criminal prosecution against Shamil Basayev on charges of that he, without the knowledge of the leadership of Ichkeria, organized a terrorist act in theater center at Dubrovka.

On December 27, 2002, a truck bomb driven by suicide bombers blew up the Government House in Grozny. On February 25, 2003, Basayev claimed responsibility for organizing this terrorist attack.

Shamil Basayev was the organizer of a number of suicide attacks that took place in 2003: on July 5 at the Wings rock festival in Tushino (Moscow), on December 5 in the train in Essentuki, on December 9 at the National Hotel (Moscow).

On May 9, 2004, Chechen President Akhmat Kadyrov died as a result of an explosion at a stadium in Grozny. On May 17, 2004, Basayev stated that he ordered the assassination. On June 15, 2006, the Kavkaz Center news agency circulated a statement by Shamil Basayev in which he again claimed responsibility for the assassination of Chechen President Akhmat Kadyrov. According to Basayev, the perpetrators of the attack were paid $50,000.

On the night of June 22, 2004, militant groups led by Shamil Basayev carried out a large-scale military raid on the territory of Ingushetia, as a result of which 97 Russian military and police officers were killed and captured a large number of small arms and ammunition.

On August 25, 2004, two Russian passenger liners were blown up. Sh. Basayev is suspected of organizing these terrorist attacks.

On September 1, 2004, a group of militants seized school No. 1 in the city of Beslan (North Ossetia). On September 3, 2004, as a result of the assault, some of the hostages were released, but more than 350 people died, most of them children. Basayev confessed to being involved in the attack in an interview included in the attack file as evidence. In the same month, the Russian FSB promised to pay 300 million rubles for information that would allow "neutralizing" Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev.

CRI President Aslan Maskhadov died on March 8, 2005 as a result of an operation carried out by FSB special forces in the village of Tolstoy-Yurt, Grozny region of Chechnya.

On October 13, 2005, an armed rebellion took place in the city of Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkaria), in which Shamil Basayev announced his participation. Indirect confirmation of this was a video recording in which he, together with one of the leaders of the Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat Anzor Astemirov, planned a terrorist attack. During the two-day fighting in the city, 12 civilians, 35 law enforcement officers and about 90 rebels were killed.

After the death on June 17, 2006 of Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, who replaced Maskhadov as president of Ichkeria, and the transfer of presidential powers to the former vice-president of the CRI, Dokku Umarov, Shamil Basayev was appointed vice-president of Ichkeria on June 27, 2006.

Death of Shamil Basayev

On July 10, 2006, Shamil Basayev died as a result of the explosion of a truck with explosives accompanied by him near the village of Ekazhevo in Ingushetia. Representatives of the FSB of the Russian Federation stated that the truck exploded as a result of a "special operation" - the activation of an explosive mechanism using a radio-controlled beacon built into the plastid.

The details of the operation are still the secret of the FSB, which gave rise to many different assumptions in the media. According to one version, Basayev died as a result of careless handling of an explosive device. According to another, the leader of the militants was killed as a result of a targeted air strike, according to the third, the destruction of the leader of the militants became possible thanks to an agent introduced into the environment of illegal armed groups. It has also been suggested that Basayev may have been killed as a result of a showdown or blood feud.

In October 2007, the president of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dokku Umarov, published a series of decrees on the separatist website on posthumous awards to fallen comrades-in-arms. Shamil Basayev was awarded the title of Generalissimo, he was awarded the Order of Honor of the Nation, and the Grozny region of Chechnya was renamed Basaevsky.

Family status

According to some reports, Shamil Basayev was married three times (Kommersant reports six wives of Basayev), has a son and a daughter. The first wife is a native of Abkhazia. The father of his wife is the ensign of the aviation unit in the city of Gudauta (Abkhazia) Yuri Kukunovich Dzheniya. Basayev married his daughter Anzhela in 1993 and took her to Chechnya. (According to other sources, after the war in Abkhazia, he married 17-year-old Indira Dzheniya from the village of Mgundzrykhva, Gudauta region of Abkhazia). Basayev confirmed the existence of the family in Abkhazia in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on July 15, 1995.

According to the head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Abkhazia, Murman Gegiya, until recently, Shamil Basayev's first wife lived in her father's house in the village of Duripsh, Gudauta region, but before the start of the 2nd Chechen campaign, she left with her two children. There is evidence that the Basayev family settled in the Netherlands, where they received a residence permit.

According to information from the Kavkaz Center news agency, in February 2005, Shamil Basayev married a native Krasnodar Territory, a native Cossack.

On November 29, 2005, Elina Ersenoeva, a 25-year-old resident of Grozny, became the third wife of Shamil Basayev, an employee public organization"Info-Most" and a freelance correspondent for the newspaper "Chechen Society". According to her mother, she was married against her will. A month after Basayev's death, on August 17, 2006, Elina Ersenoeva was abducted in the center of Grozny by unidentified law enforcement officers.

Notes

Shamil Basaev. Biography // RIA Novosti, 07/11/2006.
"Moskovskaya Pravda", January 27, 1996
ITAR-TASS.
"Izvestia", April 25, 1996
"Nezavisimaya Gazeta", March 12, 1996
"Nezavisimaya Gazeta", March 12, 1996
Radio station "Echo of Moscow", May 31, 1996
"Izvestia", April 25, 1996
Geneticists identified Basaev // Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 12/28/2006.
Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev was killed in Ingushetia a year ago // Caucasian Knot, 07/10/2007.

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Until 1970 he lived in the village of Dyshne-Vedeno, then in the village of Yermolovskaya, Chechnya. Since 1983 he has worked as a laborer.

From 1989 to 1991 he studied in Istanbul at the Islamic Institute.

Shamil Basayev's group was founded in June-July 1991 under the name "Vedeno" to protect the buildings where the congresses of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus and the National Congress of the Chechen People were held. The group included residents of the villages of Benoy, Vedeno, Dyshne Vedeno, Bamut and other mountain villages.

In the summer of 1994, Basayev entered into hostilities against the opposition on the side of Dudayev. In July, in Grozny, the "Abkhaz battalion" fought with Labazanov's group. Basayev's formation also played a role during the unsuccessful attempt to storm Grozny by the opposition. Basayev was considered one of the closest associates of the Chechen president. The personnel of the "Abkhazian battalion" guarded Dudayev.

By the beginning of hostilities with the federal troops, there were about 2 thousand people under the command of Sh. Basayev. After the defeat in Vedeno, 200-300 people remained in the battalion. On June 3, 1995, the house of Basayev's uncle Khasmagomed Basayev was destroyed by a missile and bomb attack, as a result of which 12 relatives of Sh. Basayev were killed, including his sister, Zinaida, born in 1964. and seven children.

The detachment of militants he led had significant material resources, including infantry fighting vehicles, Grad installations, Strela and Stinger MANPADS.

On July 21, 1995, "for special services to the Fatherland, shown courage, selflessness in repelling Russian aggression" by order of Dudaev, he was awarded the rank of brigadier general (early).

In early October 1995, Basayev's detachment of 300 people camped in the forests near the village of Chapaeve, Novlaksky district. The head of the district administration asked the militants to leave the territory of the district. To this, Basayev said that this was Chechen land (before the deportation of 1944, Chechens lived on the territory of the present Novolaksky district) and he would stay there as long as he wanted.

In December 1995 he was one of the leaders of the assault on Grozny.

On the 20th of February 1997, at the founding congress of the Party of Freedom of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (PS CRI), Shamil Basayev was elected its honorary chairman.

In its first special statement, Sh. Basayev's party condemned R. Kutaev (Party of National Independence) for inviting to the celebration on the occasion of the inauguration of A. Maskhadov V. Chernomyrdin, A. Galazov (RSO-A), V. Kokov (KBR), who are accused in involvement in "unleashing a war against the Chechen people."

According to experts, under the command of Shamil Basayev and his allies there were more than half of both active and potential Chechen fighters. In late 1996 - early 1997, in connection with the development of the peace process, he begins to lose support among the militants subordinate to him, who can do nothing but fight.

Since April 1977 - First Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the CRI (Industrial Block) and in the absence of the Prime Minister, whose duties are performed by the President of the CRI, had to replace him.

Since the beginning of 1997, Sh. Basayev's serious problems with health. On July 10, 1997, he resigned from the post of First Deputy Chairman of the CRI Government "for health reasons."

On August 23, 2005, by decree of the President of the CRI, Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, he was appointed Vice-Premier of the CRI (curator of the power bloc). He was also appointed head of the military committee of the GKO-Majlisul Shura (“military amir of the Mujahideen of Ichkeria”).

Reports of the death of Shamil Basayev, as in the case of many other militant leaders, appeared repeatedly (the first time back in 1995). In particular, the messages appeared in May 2000], February 3, 2005, October 13, 2005.

Personal
Eight times wounded, seven times shell-shocked. Suffered diabetes. By nature, balanced, calm, cautious. Conducted by him combat operations were bold.
Owned an oil refinery in Benoy. According to Sh. Basayev, it is known that in 1997 he earned 2 million US dollars, of which he gave 90%, and bought a house for the rest.
He considered himself a true Muslim: he respected Sharia law, performed namaz (prayer) five times a day. He wrote poetry in Russian and Chechen. Candidate for master of sports in all-around and chess. He considered Che Guevara, Garibaldi, Charles de Gaulle, F. Roosevelt to be his idols.